The Wettening
"The Wettening" is the 2nd segment in the 5th episode of the first season of Invader Zim. It first premiered on April 27, 2001, on Nickelodeon. Plot Summary One day at Skool it begins to rain, and Zim grows curious; as it never rains on his homeworld, he has never experienced it before. Dib takes notice of Zim's caution towards the falling water, and coaxes Zim into stepping out into the rain, only to discover that the Irken race has an innate weakness to the highly polluted downpour, which causes a burning sensation, like acid upon impact. Dib decides to exploit this newfound weakness, thus by using water as a weapon to stop Zim once and for all. But, Zim himself finds a way to protect himself from this new threat. After testing some paste collected from Skool, Zim discovers that if he bathes himself in it, water no longer affects him. Over the weekend, Dib and Zim prepare themselves for an epic showdown on Monday. Dib shows up with a water balloon launcher, and Zim shows up with nothing, instead stands there, cowering on the spot, apparently too afraid to move or speak. However, when Dib fires his first water balloon, it flies straight through Zim, revealing him to be a hologram. The real Zim is actually in orbit of the planet, aboard a giant space station. Zim then proceeds to drain all the water from the city, and uses it to fill a giant water balloon. He targets Dib, and releases it, flooding the entire city and destroying Zim's house. Zim doesn't care, and simply returns to the lower level of his base, though he gets stuck in the toilet elevator. Facts of Doom Cultural References *The very concept of an invading alien race being vulnerable to water is a major motif of the science-fiction flim [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signs_(film) Signs], which came out a year after this episode. *Dib's final quote in the episode, "The wettening! The wettening!" is likely a reference to Kurtz's infamous last words in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: "The horror! The horror!" Trivia *This episode is the first since "The Nightmare Begins" that used the official Invader ZIM font. *From this episode onward, Zim (and all Irkens) only have three fingers. *This episode was nearly scrapped because the staff had trouble making it long enough. *This DVD version of this episode includes easter eggs. *This episode is very similar to the pilot episode in which Dib attempts to use one of Zim's weaknesses to expose him, and a battle starts. *This episode caused much confusion about Zim's weakness to water, due to the fact that in episodes before and after, he gets wet and doesn't feel any pain. In "Parent Teacher Night", he gets splashed with punch. In "Attack of the Saucer Morons", while Zim is riding the pig ship, it does a barrel roll through water. In both "Door to Door" and "The Frycook What Came from All that Space", he is sprayed by a hose. Also in the latter, he is splashed with punch and gets in white-hot grease. (But this could be an alien liquid.) However, in "A Room with a Moose" and "Tak: The Hideous New Girl", he still seems to have a weakness to it. **In the DVD commentary to later episodes, this is occasionally passed off with things like, "He's covered completely in paste all the time." **Jhonen Vasquez has suggested that Irkens are allergic to the pollution in the water, rather than water itself. *This is one of the several episodes where Gaz smiles. The other episodes are "Parent Teacher Night", "Battle-Dib", "Bloaty's Pizza Hog", "Game Slave 2", "Mysterious Mysteries", "Gaz, Taster of Pork", and the pilot episode. *Despite Professor Membrane not appearing in this episode and the previous one, "Attack of the Saucer Morons", Rodger Bumpass is still credited, which implies that he may have appeared originally in either episode but the scene was cut for time. Things You Might Have Missed *After the kids sing The Rain Song, Zootch pops up and pretends to spin records like a DJ. *Zim raises Gaz high above his head and uses her as an umbrella; if you pause at the right moment when Zim smacks Gaz's umbrella out of her hand and grabs her, one frame looks like their hands are about to touch. *Keef appears several times throughout the episode, once stuck to the ceiling, and several times throughout the Rain Song. *When Dib is looking for Zim on Monday morning, Gaz smacks herself in the head. * Jhonen Vasquez makes a cameo in this episode, swallowing his piranha when the fish tank had been drained, causing it to fall into the glass he had sitting nearby. Then, he drinks the water with the piranha in it and chokes on it. He also is seen reading a magazine featuring one of his own comic book characters, Happy Noodle Boy. *Vasquez was also briefly seen in a frame with Irken teeth, maybe as a reference that he is the creator of the Irkens. *Steve Ressel made a cameo in this episode; he can be seen eating a hot dog right before the city floods from Zim's giant balloon. *In the part of the episode when Zim is at the computer to see what the paste on his hand is made out of, there is a computer screens that shows: Asteroid, Rat hair, cupcake, earwax, big door, H2O, wale yellow, dirty dirt, and paste (misspelled without the E). *When Zim ties up the orbital water balloon, he wears a robotic glove with 3 finger output. However, the actual robotic hand used to tie up the balloon has four fingers. Inconsistencies and Animation Errors *The paste on his hand is including (H2O) which is water, but despite the fact that it can sting Zim, he's okay about it. *In the beginning of the episode, the calendar said Wednesday 7, though it says Friday 9 when the children return to class in a later scene. Ms. Bitters mentioned ‘yesterday’s paste incident’ despite the fact that it would have happened two days ago, not the day before. *When Zim sucked up all the water the water balloon looked different than when he made a model of it. *When Dib and Gaz are walking home, there's a scene where Dib's legs aren't animated. *In the scene where Zim is being tortured by Dib at the sight of a faucet dripping, watch carefully. When the camera shows the faucet in front of Zim, and him getting closer, or so it seems, he has no PAK. *When Dib has the water tank strapped to his back and yells at "Zim". Watch carefully, Zim's hologram's was facing the street when it shows in the first scene, but when the camera looks at it again, the hologram's face turns to the screen. *In the same scenes, every time the camera looks between "Zim" and Dib, the hologram's face was turning back and forth. When Dib is about to throw the water balloon at "Zim", the hologram's face turns away to what's in front of it until the balloon goes through it and it disappears. *As Gaz wakes up Dib, his scythe-lock seems to have gone limp overnight. In other episodes, however, this never happens. *After Zim gets hit by Dib's water balloon when he examines the paste on his hand, he appears to have four fingers, even though Irkens have only three fingers. Music Main Article: The Kevin Manthei Invader Zim-phony Special *Wet Stares *Building Montage *Holo-Zim *Water Park See also *The Wettening (Transcript) *The Wettening/Screenshots es:La humedad Category:Season 1 Category:Episodes Category:Altered Episodes Category:Screenshots